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SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) -
At Spartanburg Regional Medical Center the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is dark and quiet. It's kept that way to simulate life inside the womb for babies born too early. It's those babies who are most vulnerable and depend the most on human breast milk.
"For our very low birth weight babies having breast milk can be the difference between life and death," said Elizabeth Kissinger, the Director of Women's and Children's Services at Spartanburg Regional.
But according to Kissinger, procuring human breast milk is a hard task.
"Right now it is hard to come by and it's expensive," she said.
So within the last month, Spartanburg Regional Medical Center partnered with Medical University of South Carolina and Mothers Milk Bank of South Carolina to become a milk depot, the first in the Upstate where mothers can donate breast milk.
Kissinger said donors are likely mothers who produce more milk than their own newborn needs or mothers who have experienced a loss and want to donate their milk in their baby's honor.
Kissinger said the hospital will provide donors with everything they need, including breast milk bags and that the entire process is free.
“They can donate their milk here and then we ship it to the milk bank so that they can pasteurize it and test it and do all that they need to do,” said Kissinger.
After that, she said the milk bank then sells the milk back to the hospitals to use for their neonates. Kissinger said by being a donation site, the hospital hopes they'll now always have a steady supply.
"There's no first-come, first-serve type of a thing, but it certainly is good to have a great relationship with the milk bank, so they know that we are consistently bringing milk in and sending them the donor milk,” said Kissinger.
Erin Shreve a labor doula with Doula Du'jour at the Carolina WaterBirth Center says having a milk depot in the Upstate will be valuable.
“I think throwing breast milk away makes any mom feel like wow, what a waste because it's like liquid gold to us and there's no formula that can duplicate breast milk, what's in breast milk and what breast milk does for children,” said Shreve.
And with a local option, Shreve believes more women would be likely to donate.
“It's the same thing with blood,” said Shreve. “The blood mobile goes all over the place so people are more likely to do it, but if you had to send your breast milk off somewhere or take it somewhere really far away, you're not as likely to do it.
Kissinger said the hospital is currently awaiting some equipment, but said she expects to be able to begin accepting breast milk donations as early as the end of March.
For more information on donating, visit Spartanburgregional.com
Copyright 2015 FOX Carolina (Meredith Corporation) All rights reserved.
Read more: http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/28311133/spartanburg-regional-to-open-upstates-first-breast-milk-donation-site#ixzz3TzWQVSPX
#milkbank #doula #midwife #birthcenters #breastfeeding
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